Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[ChaoticMindSays]

What does everyone think about the idea of extra terrestrial life?
My belief is that with how large the universe(s) is it is immposible for there not to be alien life. I also believe that life may be far more common in the surrounding universe than we believe it to be.
Is there any new research on the topic?

[Tylerium]

I think it is utterly ridiculous to state that Earth is the only planet in the entire Universe that is able to sustain life. As an astrophysicist would put it, Earth is a lucky roll of the cosmic dice, but there are an unmeasurable number of rolls AND dice out there.

As far as we know, all that is needed to sustain life is water and heat, this coincides with new research done on lifeforms found near thermal vents at the bottom of the deepest oceans. Of all the billions of galaxies and subsequent trillions of solar systems in the Universe, for there not to be life, even only in the forms we know of, seems unfathomable, and at the same time makes life here even more precious.

With that, you now must ask are there forms of INTELLIGENT life out there. Looking at history, especially ancient civilizations, there is a good deal of evidence (albeit not empirical) to suggest extraterrestrial interaction with humans.

Personally, I believe that humans are a genetic hybrid of an extraterrestrial species and early Earth hominids, but that idea may be a bit too far-fetched for most, but I will certainly enjoy everyone's thoughts on this subject.

[Persecrates]

I think it is utterly ridiculous to state that Earth is the only planet in the entire Universe that is able to sustain life. As an astrophysicist would put it, Earth is a lucky roll of the cosmic dice, but there are an unmeasurable number of rolls AND dice out there.

As far as we know, all that is needed to sustain life is water and heat, this coincides with new research done on lifeforms found near thermal vents at the bottom of the deepest oceans. Of all the billions of galaxies and subsequent trillions of solar systems in the Universe, for there not to be life, even only in the forms we know of, seems unfathomable, and at the same time makes life here even more precious.

With that, you now must ask are there forms of INTELLIGENT life out there. Looking at history, especially ancient civilizations, there is a good deal of evidence (albeit not empirical) to suggest extraterrestrial interaction with humans.

Agreed.
And there are a lot of empirical evidence/proof.
It's not because academic scientists dismiss, deny or worse, hide it, that there isn't.

Personally, I believe that humans are a genetic hybrid of an extraterrestrial species and early Earth hominids, but that idea may be a bit too far-fetched for most, but I will certainly enjoy everyone's thoughts on this subject.

This is a relatively new trend in the New Age movement, there is a lot of argumentation, circumstantial evidence (interpretations made by pseudo-experts: e.g. the number of humans' chromosoms compared to monkeys, Akadian or Babylonian tablets...).
I wouldn't take them at face value if I were you.

[Sleeping dragon]

Personally, I believe that humans are a genetic hybrid of an extraterrestrial species and early Earth hominids, but that idea may be a bit too far-fetched for most, but I will certainly enjoy everyone's thoughts on this subject.

It is not a new idea nor is it personal. Never heard of reptilian Aryans who are part Aryan and part reptilian. Talks like Aryan looks like reptilian, or is it the other way round.

[ChaoticMindSays]

"Tylerium wrote:
I think it is utterly ridiculous to state that Earth is the only planet in the entire Universe that is able to sustain life. As an astrophysicist would put it, Earth is a lucky roll of the cosmic dice, but there are an unmeasurable number of rolls AND dice out there.

As far as we know, all that is needed to sustain life is water and heat, this coincides with new research done on lifeforms found near thermal vents at the bottom of the deepest oceans. Of all the billions of galaxies and subsequent trillions of solar systems in the Universe, for there not to be life, even only in the forms we know of, seems unfathomable, and at the same time makes life here even more precious.

With that, you now must ask are there forms of INTELLIGENT life out there. Looking at history, especially ancient civilizations, there is a good deal of evidence (albeit not empirical) to suggest extraterrestrial interaction with humans.

Persecrates said,
Agreed.
And there are a lot of empirical evidence/proof.
It's not because academic scientists dismiss, deny or worse, hide it, that there isn't. "

Hmm, I also agree. I book i read recently proposed the idea that alien encounters may be a manifestation of the grouped human subconscious. Of course that would also mean that we are probably just a much a manifestation of theirs. But the book (The Holographic Universe) compares alien life to ancient myths of dragons and such.

Sleeping dragon said,

"It is not a new idea nor is it personal. Never heard of reptilian Aryans who are part Aryan and part reptilian. Talks like Aryan looks like reptilian, or is it the other way round."

It really isn't a new idea, my mom shares, or used to, in this belief, but who said anything about reptilians?!

[Open]

Hi, I'm new to the forum, but here is what I think:

I believe that their is a possibility of extra terrestrial life somewhere out in the cosmos. To ignore the sheer possibility, to me, would seem like ignorance. Their are billions of billions of in the galaxies observable universe.
Along with many discovered exoplanets (planets orbiting other stars outside our solar system) suggesting that planetary systems may in fact be common in the universe. The fact that life may have started by some chance collisions to build crude molecules that evolved to the first primitive form of life on our planet does make it all seem so much more precious. The probability that chance collisions could produce complex molecules that can evolve into something as complicated as DNA in a primeval ocean such as that of the early earth, is extremely small.

Now I believe that it is extremely possible that life may have arisen on our humble planet due to interactions with some of the ingredients of life carried though the cosmos by comets,meteors,etc. One theory that uses this idea is called Panspermia. Again, according to this theory, extra terrestrial life may be DNA based. However, I do not personally believe that their was some sort of interaction with some extra terrestrial civilization mixing with any early human species that necessarily evolved into us.

But the probability of intelligent life might be much smaller than there being life in general. The only problem here is, is that we have not found direct evidence for extra terrestrial intelligence, due to mostly our limitations to communicate to any other possible life forms through space. However, if their is intelligent life out there, it is probably much more advanced than out own. Perhaps if they discover us , they may say something like: "Oh, there is another primitive civilization starting to explore the vastness of space", and we may in go into the universal catalog of interglacial civilizations. Perhaps one among thousands, millions, or maybe even billions. Or perhaps they already know about us, but have deiced not to make contact because their may be some intergalactic rule of not to interact with a society until they develop at a certain stage in their evolution. Or perhaps they choose not to make contact because we are so aggressive and primitive.

Whatever the case, assuming that we do not destroy are shelves, we may one day be able to join this intergalactic
grouping of civilizations. I just hope any other life out their is not as aggressive as us. And it would probably be worse for us, because they may be much more advanced than us as well.

[Shane Hanley]

Look, there is God, angels with God and fallen angels, man beast,and insects. Then there are microscopic organism and ultramicroscopic organism. Plants are numerous.

The least of our worries in our days are extra terrestrials; or what we glamorize as "extra terrestrials" is known to us already.

The simple mystique to this matter is that other life forms may indeed exist, some friendly and some hostile - and they are all either earth-bound or heaven-bound. We will be connected to what ever these life forms are connected to.

[Dewey]

Shane, is it fair to interpret you as having said in effect; "We may encounter extraterrestrial life some day and it may harm us, but stop fussing about it so much. We already have enough earthly problems to worry about now. If it's going to happen, it will. That will be the time to deal with it."?

I ask because you appear to be selling fatalism in a scientific milieu -- and that would be a hard sell to just about any scientist -- as well as to anyone not disposed to just wait and see what disasters come along.

[Belinda]

Shane wrote:

The simple mystique to this matter is that other life forms may indeed exist, some friendly and some hostile - and they are all either earth-bound or heaven-bound. We will be connected to what ever these life forms are connected to.

If Shane means what I think he means then Shane bases his philosophy on naturalism, as do I(although I sometimes veer towards nihilism).

Dewey, true that scientists are determinists but never never fatalists. Have I read you right?

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Scientifically, what evidence is there of the existence of alien life, intelligent alien life or even contact between alien life and Earth? I have heard and read people claim that there is such evidence but not provide it.

I believe the question of the existence of some sort of bacteria-like organism exists on some far away planet we will never get to is as unknowable as it is practically irrelevant.

Something that could theoretically effect the lives of humans would be contact with intelligent life, which I think we can agree would require the ability for intergalactic travel on one side. As such, I feel about this as I feel about time-travel. We are not going to meet intelligent aliens, meet people from the future or travel back in time because if it could happen, we would already be over run by time-travelers from the future and aliens. One might rebut me by saying that maybe we will be the first race in the universe to develop the tools necessary to travel far enough to meet other intelligent life, but that violates their own premise about the statistical unlikelihood that in the vastness of space there are not many more like us.

[A Poster He or I]

Something that could theoretically effect the lives of humans would be contact with intelligent life, which I think we can agree would require the ability for intergalactic travel on one side. As such, I feel about this as I feel about time-travel. We are not going to meet intelligent aliens, meet people from the future or travel back in time because if it could happen, we would already be over run by time-travelers from the future and aliens.

I cannot agree here. It seems quite reasonable that aliens might surmount intergalactic distances by simply bypassing the idea of travel altogether; instead taking advantage of quantum non-locality to let the energy of their thought manifest where it will. Quantum correlation across light-years would be instantaneous--we know this empirically from the proofs of Bell's Theorem. How would these aliens manifest themselves? Perhaps in the thoughts of human mystics. For all we know, Gautama was taking instructions from aliens relaxing in their arm-chairs on their home world.

And the argument against time-travel assumes that time is actually progressive when science demonstrates temporal symmetry (i.e., no direction for time) at the quantum scale. If all time-travel across human history is occurring in a continuum where past, present, and future are meaningless at the most fundamental level, then the net effect would simply be a single snapshot of all history: my point being that no one in history could tell where history was changed no matter how many temporal "intrusions" occurred.

[Withoutpeers]

On Earth, intelligent life ended with the dolphin. (Life should never have had left the water). The more life became intelligent the less it became content. We became top smart for our own good.

If there is extra terrestrial life out there more intelligent than we are then they are probably doing what the most intelligent do here on Earth: stay away from human beings.

[Cronos988]

Define intelligent?

You seem very pessimistic about humanity.

Statistically, extra-terristrial life is very likely, though that depends on your definition of life. Earth-like life is already very likely, and there might be other forms of self-replicating systems. Is that even a philosophical question (and not just one of statistics), though?

[Episkeuo]

Drakes Equation can pretty much sum up my thoughts on this.

[FALCON]

The life that we have to our surroundings has artistic explosions that we are not able to see.
I believe that, alone the human systems (social circles) capable of a positive defined conscience, they will be able to be hosts of the Alien Life.